by Becky Clark
“Yup.”
Lily giggled and bounced in her seat. “My husband says that when he met me, he had to triple his nap quotient.”
“I get that,” I said with a smile. “You’re what I think is called a people person.” I bit into the granola bar, dropping oat crumbs everywhere.
“Yes!” Lily clapped her hands.
“Well, stop it. It’s exhausting.”
Her face fell.
“Oh my gosh. Lily, I’m sorry. I was just joking.”
She grinned at me and clapped some more. “I know! Me too!”
“This is going to be an interesting weekend,” I said.
“I know!”
I wanted to give Lily a chance to settle down, if that was possible, so I ate the granola bar while I pushed aside a few boxes and bags, making room to perch myself on the edge of the table across from their island. Lily held out her hand for my empty wrapper and I dropped it into her palm. “Thanks, Mom.”
She giggled.
“So, Orville,” I asked. “You’re one of the volunteers for the conference?”
“I am.”
I eyed the empty table in front of them. “And what is it you’re doing?”
“At the moment? Nothing. We’re waiting for instructions.”
Lily nodded emphatically.
I glanced around the room, mentally noting a dozen tasks they could be accomplishing. “Have you two ever been to a writers’ conference before?”
“Yes, of course!” Lily said. “I’ve been to this one three times, and to a children’s conference twice. I write for kids.”
“Of course you do.” She might as well have informed me that water was wet.
“And Orville’s been here longer than me,” she added while I rooted through the box of snacks near me, scoring a package of Oreos.
As I fished a cookie out, I asked Orville, “And what is it you write?”
“Medical thrillers.”
“Ooh, are you a doctor?” I bit the Oreo in half, then popped both halves into my mouth. It seemed more demure than cramming the whole thing in at once. But it wasn’t.
“No. Retired engineer. I’m more of a computer guy. Kinda techie. Branching out.”
A computer guy writing a medical thriller. It could certainly happen, but the advice we always heard as writers was write what you know. That’s easiest, of course, but many gripping page-turners have been written by authors who twisted that advice into write what you want to know. Done right, that’s what allows a computer guy to write medical thrillers. “Done right” being the operative phrase. Research is tricky. You need enough to make the reader believe you know what you’re talking about, but not give them a huge info dump that makes them want to fake their own death so as not to have to finish your book. I’d be interested to see which kind of writer Orville was.
“But neither of you have volunteered behind the scenes at a conference before?”
They both shook their heads.
“And nobody told you what needed to be done?”
Lily glanced around the room as if looking to see one of the nobodies to whom I’d referred. Orville frowned, as if he’d just that moment realized volunteers might actually work in the workroom we sat in.
“Are all of the main volunteers down with food poisoning?”
“Yes, that’s what Viv said when she called me.” Lily pointed at a large whiteboard mounted on the wall. On it were eight or ten names and phone numbers with a line through each. At the bottom were Lily and Orville’s names and phone numbers, as well as Clement!ne Sm!th and her phone number. I laughed at the exclamation marks and assumed Lily added them.
“How in the world did everyone get food poisoning? At the tasting for the meals?” I finished the Oreos. Again, Lily held out her hand for my wrapper.
“No, that was way last week.” Lily dropped the wrapper in a nearby trash can. “If it was that, everyone would be better by now.”
“They probably had a final meeting with food served,” Orville said.
Lily snapped her fingers. “I bet you’re right.” She beamed at him like he’d won a gold medal at the Volunteer Olympics.
“Well, at least that’s the only major problem. We can handle that.” It was the best rallying cry I could summon right then.
I saw Lily and Orville exchange a look. “What? Is there something else?” I asked.
Lily’s arm shot up like she had the correct answer in school. Which she probably did. A lot. “Nothing major. Just a little glitch we heard about with the online registration.”
“Computer glitch? Sounds right up your alley, Orville.” I tipped my head at Lily. “Lucky we have a computer geek here, eh?”
She beamed at him again and nodded hard.
“Can you show me the website?” I asked him.
“I don’t have a computer. Do you?”
“No, I didn’t bring mine down. It’s still up in my room.”
“I have one.” Lily dragged a laptop case from the floor by her feet up to the tabletop. She pulled it out, tapped some keys, and slid it toward Orville.
He pulled it closer and adjusted his glasses while looking up and down at the screen. He hovered one finger over the keyboard. “I just touch that one?” he asked Lily. She nodded. Then he asked, “And how do I … interweb?”
“Wait,” I said. “You don’t have a computer with you … or you don’t have one at all?” Hadn’t he called himself a computer guy? A techie?
“I worked mostly with spreadsheets,” he said, not answering my question.
Lily pulled the computer back toward her and tapped more keys. Finally she turned the screen around so we could all see the website that was set up for people to register and pay for the conference. Filling the screen in big red letters loomed the words, “Website down for unscheduled maintenance. Try back in an hour.”
I relaxed. “Just an hour. Must not be a big deal.”
“It’s been on there since yesterday,” Lily said. “But probably!”
I thought for a minute. “It’s Wednesday afternoon. Most everyone is already signed up by now anyway, since the conference starts on Friday, so our only real problem is the loss of our main volunteers.”
“True!” Lily grinned. “Except for the double-booking!”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “The what now?”
“The hotel double-booked the conference rooms,” she explained.
“There’s a bunch of people expecting to share the conference meeting space with us?”
Lily laughed. “Don’t be silly. Half of them are dogs! They double-booked a dog show!”
The Oreos backed up into my throat. Without a word I opened a shrink-wrapped package of water bottles and took a swig from one, wishing it was vodka. I set it down, then walked to the whiteboard and reluctantly wrote my name and cell number under Clement!ne’s. Then I copied Lily’s and Orville’s numbers into the contact list in my phone. I added Clementine’s without the exclamation marks. This was going to be an interesting weekend. I pushed up my sleeves, glad I’d agreed to help Viv. There was no way she could handle things here and also take care of her problem with Hanna.
I took a deep breath. “Orville, you need to call the registration website people. Lily, you need to get some more volunteers here. I’ll go talk to the front desk about whether we have to make our coats glossy for judging or if we need to teach dogs to write.”
Four
I braced myself with both hands on the reception desk and felt my neck and shoulders tense. “So”—I glanced at the clerk’s name tag—“Bernice. What’s this I hear about the Stumptown Writers’ Conference having to share space with a dog show this weekend?”
I expected the smile to slide right off her face and land somewhere in Guatemala, but it did the exact opposite. Got bigger and faker. She was a true hospitality industry professional.
She gave a dainty, Southern belle flip of her wrist. “That just dills my pickles! That is not what’s going on. Who told you that? W
hoever it was has entirely misunderstood the situation.”
“Oh good.” I felt the tension leave my neck. “What exactly is the situation, then?”
“There’s no situation”—this time she flipped both wrists—“at all.”
I cut my eyes at her but continued to grip the marble countertop. The corners of the huge fake smile twitched.
“Aha! I knew it. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Really. Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I used my mother’s glare on her. It had always worked to make me confess.
She assessed my determination, but when I didn’t flinch, she wrinkled her nose as if smelling a whiff of bad hospitality. Or maybe now her pickles were extremely dilled. She looked both ways before leaning in close to me. “Just the teensiest little something. Hardly anything.”
“Would you please tell me already?” I felt my neck and shoulders tighten up again, this time worse. It’s been my experience that when someone goes to this much trouble to tell you everything is hunky-dory, it’s probably not.
“We double-booked the conference rooms this weekend.”
“So, exactly the situation I asked you about a minute ago.”
“Yes, but you made it sound so … so—”
“Like a situation?”
“Yes. No. Here’s the thing. Whoever booked the dog show input the wrong date. We expected they would be here next year on this weekend. But it was this year. Isn’t that silly?”
“Not the word I’d use. My real question is, what are you doing about it? Am I going to have a doggie beauty pageant in the middle of my workshop about how to write dialogue?”
Bernice’s face lit up. “It’s actually not a regular dog show like what you’re thinking. It’s an agility competition.”
My mouth dropped open. “That’s even worse. Are you telling me we’re going to have dogs jumping through hoops and spinning plates while we’re trying to learn the ten elements of a good plot?”
She flipped that wrist again. “You’re thinking of, like, a Vegas thing or the old Ed Sullivan show. This is different.”
I wanted to grab her by her navy blue blazer and shake out all the information she was withholding from me. I wanted to see it scattered across her marble reception desk so I could piece it together myself. But I didn’t. Instead, I took a deep, cleansing breath like my yoga instructor taught. I held it for a count of five, then released it for a count of five.
“I don’t get to Vegas much. But now I’d really love to hear what you plan to do about this fiasco.”
Again with the wrist and the Hospitality Smile. “Pshaw. It’s not a fiasco! I’m making some calls.” As if to illustrate how she’d go about this Herculean task, she picked up the hotel phone and waved it at me. “We’ll get it all taken care of. You won’t notice a thing. It’s completely under control.”
I released my grip on the smooth marble counter and flexed my hands to get the feeling back. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Completely under control. Completely.”
I didn’t believe her, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. “How ’bout if I check back with you later and you can tell me about those phone calls?”
“That would be super. Super duper!” She used her Hospitality Smile on me, flashing every single one of her teeth.
I was not fooled.
I crossed the lobby and sank into a soft upholstered armchair, trying to decide how much to worry about the agility dogs. The lobby was calm and quiet. A few people nursed drinks across the room, two at the restaurant bar and three at a high-top table in the corner. The young man in the white shirt and paisley tie I’d seen earlier still sat nearby. This time, instead of his phone, he had a newspaper open in front of his face, reminding me of a spy in an old Cold War movie. He kind of creeped me out. Who just sits around a hotel lobby? Besides me, that is.
Jack the concierge crossed the room carrying a plastic bag the size of ten pounds of flour. When he got to the large glass table in the center of the lobby, he stopped and poured some of the contents into small bowls. Perhaps peanuts for the bar. It reminded me I needed to talk to someone about the food for the conference.
I walked over to him. He acknowledged my presence with a smile but concentrated on his task. I glanced at the label on the bag. Canidae Organic Bakery.
“Hey, Ms. Russo. Everything okay?”
“Ask me again later. And please call me Charlee. I’m not that much older than you.”
He finished filling a bowl, then pushed it toward me as he filled another. It was some kind of trail mix, not peanuts, so I scooped up a handful in my palm before plucking out a nice-sized nugget and popping it in my mouth. As I chewed I pointed at the label. “Yum. Latin for hotel snacks?”
Jack frowned slightly and I noticed the miniature scoops near the bowls. This wasn’t my first party foul and certainly wouldn’t be my last. Same with ice tongs. I never remembered to use them. Just dug my hand into the ice bucket to extract what I needed. “Oops. Sorry. Too hungry, I guess.”
He kept working but asked, “Can I help you with anything?”
How nice of him to gloss over my faux pas with the trail mix. “Actually, yes. I need to talk to the catering manager about food for the conference. Can you point me toward her office?”
“I can do better than that. I can point right at her.” He settled the bag of trail mix on the table before pointing at a woman hurrying toward the exit carrying a large box. He called out “Roz!” and motioned her to come over.
She didn’t break stride. “I’m in a hurry, Giacomo. Can it wait?”
Jack and I hurried toward her. As we crossed the lobby, he said, “Roz Zwolinski, this is Charlee Russo. She needs to talk to you about the food for the writers’ conference this weekend.”
As we neared, Roz fumbled with the flaps of her box. She positioned it away from us but didn’t stop walking. Jack reached out to carry the box for her, but she jerked it away. It seemed like a rude, unnecessary reaction to his helpful gesture and I disliked her immediately. From across the lobby she’d looked well put together, but up close I saw that her charcoal power suit was frayed at the cuffs and her gray roots were showing. She was a Suicide Blonde, dyed by her own hand.
“I just need a couple of minutes to make sure everything is okay for the conference. I understand many of the volunteers got food poisoning recently—”
Roz stopped abruptly. “Viv? Did Viv get food poisoning?”
“No, I don’t think so—”
Her phone chirped and she bobbled the box as she checked the screen. Jack again offered to help her but she ignored him. She also ignored the call. She pocketed her phone and finally looked at me as though she saw me as a person, not simply an obstacle keeping her from exiting. “Who are you?”
“This is Charlee Russo, Roz,” Jack patiently explained again. “She needs a couple of minutes for an update of the menu for the conference.”
Roz waved Jack away, but he stayed by my side.
“Everything is fine for the conference. We had the tasting last week with Viv and her volunteers and they signed off on everything.” Roz hastened toward the exit again, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out. The chef and kitchen staff are good. It’s not their first rodeo.” Then she entered the revolving door and it spit her out on the other side.
I looked at Jack, who shrugged. “She’s pretty busy,” he said.
“Clearly. Can I talk to the chef ?”
Jack pointed past the bar and to the right. “Kitchen’s back there.”
I followed his directions, passing the bar. I saw the same guy who’d been talking about basketball earlier still talking to the bartender. I made my way through the dining room, weaving through the tables, most of them empty at this time of the afternoon.
I pushed open the swinging doors, expecting to find dishes being washed and dinner prepped. Instead, six or eight employees in aprons sat or leaned
on the stainless steel countertops. Nobody worked.
“Um … can I talk to the chef ?”
“Nope,” one said.
“He’s not here,” said another.
“He got fired,” said a third.
Roz should have led with that. But it explained her rush. She had to go find a new chef, pronto. But telling me the chef and staff were good and it wasn’t their first rodeo? That was some hard-core lying. She’d never even flinched, although she hadn’t looked me in the eye while she said it.
“Did Roz fire him?”
I heard some indistinct mutterings—“probably” … “wouldn’t doubt it” … “ruthless bitch” … “always gets her way” … “wanted him out.”
Finally, a fresh-faced kid who looked like he belonged in middle school Earth Science rather than a hotel kitchen waved them to be quiet. “Who are you?” he asked me.
“My name is Charlee Russo and I’m helping with the writers’ conference this weekend.”
A voice popped up from the back. “One of the lucky ones who didn’t get food poisoning, eh?”
“Roz probably poisoned them herself,” a different voice said.
I swiveled toward the voice. “What makes you say that?”
The fresh-faced kid stepped toward me after giving the voice behind him a warning glance. “Don’t mind them. We’re all a little upset. Spouting off. Venting. We don’t know anything. Just that Chef was supposed to be here for his shift, but he came an hour late, cleaned out his desk, and left. Didn’t say anything except that he’d been fired. That’s all we know.” He glanced around the room. As a warning for them to be quiet? Not to air their employer’s dirty laundry to the guests? Not to contradict him? I couldn’t tell.
I didn’t know what to think, but my curiosity had been piqued. Why hadn’t Roz mentioned it? What was in that box? Did she get fired also? Was she cleaning out her desk?
I relaxed my clinched fists. None of my business. I needed to focus on my mission. “So what happens about the conference meals? How are you going to feed three hundred people all weekend without a chef?”
None of them had an answer for me.
